The American People’s Money

THE FOURTH DAY.

WAS CONGRESS BOUGHT TO DEMONETIZE SILVER ?

“Well,” said Mr. Sanders, “ I shall undertake to prove the truth of that charge.”

“ Now,” said the young lady, “the dispute grows interesting.  I am ready to believe anything bad of the ruling classes of Great Britain, and I have not much faith in the American Congress.”

“ In the first place,” said Mr. Sanders, “ I have shown that the demonetization of silver was a trick.”

“ How so ? ” asked the peak-nosed man.

“ From the fact that so vast and world-embracing a change was made without a word in the title of the bill or in any part of the bill itself, to indicate or give notice of what was being done.  In the second place, it was perpetrated so secretly that the president who signed the bill did not know that it demonetized silver, but many months afterwards congratulated the country upon the large production of that metal, which had been already denied access to the mints by the very bill he had signed !  In the third place I have shown that nearly all our leading senators and members, including the speaker of the House, disavowed any knowledge of the real purpose of the bill or of the great change which it had accomplished.  They either told the truth and were innocent victims of the wrong, or they were in the conspiracy and paid for shutting their eyes.  In the fourth place the act was a trick because it did its work by leaving out of the list of silver coins the standard silver dollar, and doing this in the Senate, after the bill had passed the ordeal of the House, and consummating the great revolution in the darkness and hugger-mugger of a conference report, of six members, in the hurry and confusion of Congressional legislation.  In the fifth place, it is shown to have been a trick, and the result of a conspiracy and not an accident, by the fact that from that hour to this, for twenty-two years, the whole power of the American people has been unequal to the task of repealing that law, so surreptitiously born, without a god-father.  In the sixth place, if we still have any doubt that this birth of darkness and crime was long gestated, and the fruit of a world-wide combination, we have only to look at the action of the daily press of this country, in almost unanimously defending the nameless and fatherless bastard, by the most ingenious, continuous, adroit and shameless falsehoods ;  falsehoods for which there is no parallel since God opened his sulphur-hotel for the accommodation of the fallen angels.  In fact, in the presence of Prof. Lawrence Laughlin and his kind, Lucifer appears like a very shallow-brained, stupid, commonplace, clownish personage.  He ought to have started a daily paper in heaven in defence of evil, and after one month’s publication the Lord would have been so bewildered that he would have said :  ‘Here Luci, you can take possession.  I’ll go below !’

“ Now,” continued Mr. Sanders, “ does anybody believe, for one moment, that this concerted cataract and cyclone of misrepresentation could exist unless it was paid for ?  Truth is like the blessed air and the sunshine—it is natural and continuous—because it is in perfect accord with all God’s universe ;—but falsehood is something abnormal, unnatural and temporary.  Its black waters must be constantly pumped up and forced into the pure current of the world’s affairs, and somebody must pay for the pumping ;  and, if that somebody does not pay, the pump stops and the fetid waters flow back to their native mire in the great swamp, the Serbonian bog, on the borders of Satan’s kingdom.

“ Consider man’s struggles with error in the past ages, and think of the terrible array of falsehoods that were poured forth in defense of wrong.  Where are they now ?  You could not reach one of them with an artesian well ;—but the face of Truth is as blooming and as beautiful as ever, shrined in the glory of perpetual youth.  Think of the arguments for the divine rights of kings, which no less a person than John Milton had to answer ;  and which are alive yet even in our own land to-day, Think of the proofs adduced by the learned, the pious and the wise to prove that the earth did not revolve upon its axis ;  or the demonstrations made, still earlier, that there was no land where the continents of North and South America now are.  Think of the innumerable excellent reasons that were given to prove that the thirteen colonies could not defeat Great Britain ;  and of the uncountable lies and slanders against Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Patrick Henry, and the rest of that noble band of patriots, uttered by the men who had put a price on their heads.  Progress is simply an exodus out of the tortures of falsehood ;  and Truth marches down the ages over the rotten carcasses of innumerable wrongs.”

“ But,” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ are you not unjust to the daily press ?  May they not honestly believe what they preach ? ”

“ You defend their character,” said the farmer, “ at the expense of their intelligence.  For instance, there has been a great hubbub over the question of what was the ‘ unit ’ of our currency—gold or silver ;  and volumes have been written in the newspapers to demonstrate that it was originally gold instead of silver.  As Pope says :

“ ‘ For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And argue ’bout it, Goddess, and about it.
So spins the silk-worm fine her slender store,
And labors till she clouds herself all o’er.’

“ And yet, with all this dodging, trickery, finessing, false pretenses and false citations, there stood before them, all the time, the law of 1792, section 9, which reads as follows :

“ ‘ And be it further enacted, That there shall be from time to time struck and coined at the said mint, coins of gold, silver and copper of the following denominations, values and descriptions, viz.:

“ ‘ Eagles—each to be of the value of ten dollars or units, and to contain 247½ grains of pure or 270 grains of standard gold.

“ ‘ Half eagles—each to be of the value of five dollars, and to contain 123¾ grains of pure or 270 grains of standard gold.

“ ‘ Quarter Eagles—each to be of the value of $2.50, and to contain 61⁷/₈ grains of pure or 67 4-8 grains of standard gold.

“ ‘ Dollars or units—each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar, as the same is now current, and to contain 371 4-16 grains of pure or 416 grains of standard silver.

“ ‘ Half dollars—each to be of half the value of the dollar or unit, and to contain 185 10-16 grains of pure or 208 grains of standard silver.

“ ‘ Quarter dollars—each to be of one-fourth the value of the dollar or unit, and to contain 92 13-16 grains of pure or 104 grains of standard silver.”

“ Could anything be plainer than this ?  ‘ The dollar is the unit’—‘ ten dollars or units ;’  ‘ dollars or units ;’  and then when it comes to declare what the dollar or UNIT is, it enacts that it shall be made of 371 4-16 GRAINS OF SILVER.  No gold dollars are provided for, and the dollar is the unit.  And surely there can be no gold dollar units when there are no gold dollars.  This is as plain as a pike-staff ;  and yet the Laughlin breed of prevaricators have covered this whole matter with such a dense cloud of falsehoods that it reminds one of the down east fog, which was so thick that a carpenter shingling a house shingled out onto the fog for twenty feet before he discovered his mistake.  The down east fog was thick enough to hold up one carpenter and a row of shingles, but this newspaper fog is intended to be dense enough to hold up the politics of seventy millions of people, and be the formation for a gigantic fortress of robbery and oppression.”

“ But,” said Miss Bowman, “you have not yet told us anything about British gold buying up Congress to demonetize silver in 1873.”

“ Pardon me,” said Mr. Sanders, “but this subject is so big that I wander off occasionally.”

ERNEST SEYD.

“ There was a gentleman who, until recently, resided in Denver, Colorado, named Frederick A. Luckenbach, a man of means ;  the inventor of a process for crushing ores by pneumatic power ;  an eminently respectable gentleman.  In May, 1892, he went before the Clerk of the Supreme Court of Colorado, and voluntarily made the following affidavit :

“ ‘ STATE OF COLORADO,
COUNTY OF ARAPAHOE.

Frederick A. Luckenbach, being first duly sworn on oath, deposes and says :  I am sixty-two years of age.  I was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.  I removed to the City of Philadelphia in the year 1846, and continued to reside there until 1866, when I removed to the City of New York.  In Philadelphia I was in the furniture business.  In New York I branched into machinery and inventions, and am the patentee of Luckenbach’s pneumatic pulverizer, which machines are now in use generally in the eastern part of United States and Europe.  I now reside in Denver, having removed from New York two years ago.  I am well known in New York.  I have been a member of the Produce Exchange and am well acquainted with many members of that body.  I am well known by Mr. Erastus Wyntan.

“ ‘ In 1865, I visited London, England, for the purpose of placing there Pennsylvania oil properties, in which I was interested.  I took with me letters of introduction to many gentlemen in London—among them one to Mr. Ernest Seyd from Robert M. Foust, ex-treasurer of Philadelphia.  I became well acquainted with Mr. Ernest Seyd, and with his brother Richard Seyd, who, I understand, is still living.  I visited London thereafter, every year, and with each visit renewed my acquaintance with Mr. Seyd, and upon each occasion became his guest at one or more times—joining his family at dinner or other meals.”

“ ‘ In February 1874, while on one of these visits, and while his guest for dinner, I, among other things alluded to rumors afloat, of parliamentary corruption, and expressed astonishment that such corruption should exist.  In reply to this he told me that he could relate facts about the corruption of the American Congress that would place it far ahead of the English Parliament in that line.  So far, the conversation was at the dinner table between us.  His brother, Richard, and others were there also, but this was table talk between Mr. Ernest Seyd and myself.  After dinner ended, he invited me into another room, where he resumed the conversation about legislative corruption.  He said :

“ ‘ If you will pledge me your honor as a gentleman not to divulge what I am now about to tell you while I live, I will convince you that what I said about the corruption of the American Congress is true.’  I gave him the promise and he then continued :  ‘ I went to America in the winter of 1872-3, authorized to secure, if I could, a bill demonetizing silver.  It was to the interest of those I represented—the governors of the Bank of England—to have it done.  I took with me £100,000 sterling, with instructions that if it was not sufficient to accomplish the object to draw for another £100,000, or as much more as was necessary.’  He told me German bankers were also interested in having it accomplished.  He said he was the financial adviser of the bank.  He said :  ‘ I saw the committee of the House and Senate and paid the money and staid in America until I knew the measure was safe.’  I asked him if he would give me the names of the members to whom he paid the money—but this he declined to do.  He said :  ‘ Your people will not now comprehend the far-reaching extent of that measure, but they will in after years.  Whatever you may think of corruption in the English parliament, I assure you I would not have dared to make such an attempt here as I did in your country.’  I expressed my shame to him, for my countrymen in our legislative bodies.  The conversation drifted into other subjects and after that—though I met him many times—the matter was never again referred to.

“ ‘ [Signed.]
Frederick A. Luckenbach.
Subscribed and sworn to before me at Denver,
this ninth day of May, A.D. 1892.
“ [Signed.] James A. Miller.
“ [Seal.] Clerk Supreme Court, State of Colorado.”

“ I am surprised, ” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ that you quote that letter.  It was exploded long ago.”

“ How ? ” asked Mr. Sanders.

“ ‘ It was shown by a letter of Ernest Seyd’s son and brother Richard,” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ that Ernest Seyd was not in America at that time, and hence could not have bribed Congress ;  and secondly, that he was himself a bimetallist, and had written books in favor of silver, and was therefore not likely to have helped strike it down.”

“ I am aware of all that,” said Mr. Sanders, “ here is the letter to which you refer.

“ ‘ SIR :  Our attention having been directed to statements that have been made in the American press with regard to the action of the late Ernest Seyd, in 1872, respecting the coinage act then pending, you will oblige us much by giving an unqualified contradiction to these statements.  Ernest Seyd was not in the United States at that date for the purpose of bribing members of Congress to vote for the demonetization of silver, never having been there since 1856.  The statement is the more absurd as he was the first to take up the cause of silver in England against the prevailing doctrine here, and remained a consistent supporter of silver, as his numerous works on the subject will show.  We remain,
yours truly,
ERNEST SEYD,
RICHARD SEYD.’

“ But it will be observed that, while there is a denial of the fact that Ernest Seyd was in the United States in 1872, there is no denial that the Seyd family was well acquainted with Mr. Luckeubach, or that he dined with them in London in 1865 ;  or that Ernest Seyd and he held such a conversation at the dinner table.  If Mr. Luckeubach had invented the whole story, if he did not know Ernest Seyd, if he was a fraud, they would have said so most emphatically, for he had assailed the good name of their father and brother before the whole world.

“ And if Mr. Luckenbach was an imposter why do we find the following statement recorded in the Congressional Globe, the official reporter, as having been uttered in the House, by Mr. Hooper, M.C., Mass., chairman of the Committee on Coinage, which had the bill in charge, April 9, 1872, (Part 3, XLII Congress, 2d session, page 2304):

“ ‘ This bill was prepared two years ago, and has been submitted to careful and deliberate examination.  It has the approval of nearly all the mint experts in the country, and the sanction of the Secretary of the Treasury.  Mr. Ernest Seyd, of London, a distinguished writer, who has given great attention to the subject of mints and coinage, after examining the first draft of the bill, furnished many valuable suggestions which have been incorporated in the bill.’

“ But,” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ the bill was sent to Mr. Seyd in London, and the suggestions made by him were made there.”

“ Where is the proof of that ? ” asked Mr. Sanders.  “ And observe that Hooper says it was ‘ submitted to nearly all the mint experts in the country.’  That is, in the United States.  If Mr. Seyd was not in America, why was he the only expert in England to whom the bill was submitted ?  Why was he PICKED OUT ?  And is it not strange that the only English expert selected was the same man Luckenbach dined with in London, in February, 1874,—and this fact is not denied by Seyd’s relatives,—and to whom Seyd stated that he had been the instrument used by the Bank of England to bribe Congress.  The links of connection are all there.  Ernest Seyd tells Luckenbach that with $500,000, furnished by the governors of the Bank of England, he had bought the demonetization bill through Congress.  ‘ I saw the committees of the House and Senate,’ says Seyd to Luckenbach ;  and Hooper, chairman of the committee of the House, said on the floor of Congress that Ernest Seyd ‘furnished many valuable suggestions’ to the committee.  Seyd says he ‘paid the money.’  Hooper calls it ‘ suggestions.’  It is a new name for it !”

“ But Seyd’s relatives deny it,” said Mr. Hutchinson.

“ If you were to accept the denials of guilt of the convicted criminals, or their friends,” said Mr. Sanders, “ the prison houses would all be empty.”

“ But Seyd believed in bi-metalism, ” replied Mr. Hutchinson.

“And Benedict Arnold,” said the farmer, “believed in the American Revolution, but English gold was too much for him, as it was in the other case.  It seems to be the misfortune of America that its worst enemy is the country most closely allied to it by the ties of blood, language and institutions.  The Revolutionary War is not over yet.  The surrender of Yorktown was a mere truce.  The aristocracy of England are accomplishing by bribery what it failed to achieve by bullets.  We may yet have to meet their corruption with cannon.  They are honester.”

“ But how do you get over the statement of Seyd’s son and brother that he, Ernest Seyd, was not in the United States in 1872 or 1873 ?” asked the peak-nosed man.

“ By the proof that he was here,” replied Mr. Sanders, “ by the testimony of Hooper first quoted, given publicly on the floor of the House.  And furthermore by the testimony of Senator Dawes of Massachusetts, goldite, in the Senate, recorded in the Congressional Record (Part 1, vol. 7, page 125), in which he says Ernest Seyd ‘ was here at that time, and has been here since,’ delivering lectures in the United States.  And furthermore, by the testimony of another eminent goldbug, Hon. David A. Wells, who said in the Forum, ‘ There was a man by the name of Seyd, and he was in this country in 1872.’

“ And the late Rev. Gilbert De Lamatyr, Ex M.C., told Mrs. Emery, of Lansing, Michigan, author of that famous little book, ‘ The Seven Financial Conspiracies,’ that Hon. Wm. D. Kelly, M.C., of Pennsylvania (‘the father of the House’), told him that he saw the original part of the bill which demonetized silver, and that it was in the handwriting of Ernest Seyd !

“ A friend of mine wrote to Gov. Waite of Colorado and asked him what he knew about Mr. Luckenbach.  He replied, under date of Denver, Feb. 28, 1894 :

“ ‘ As to your inquiry about Mr. Luckenbach, he is no myth, but a living entity and resides in Denver.  I was introduced to him last year, and he spoke of the fact of his making an affidavit as to Ernest Seyd.  He is a very respectable citizen and there is no doubt that every word of his affidavit is strictly true.  You are welcome to publish this statement as coming from me, if you choose.’ ”

“ But is Gov. Waite good authority ? ” asked Mr. Hutchinson.

“ The best in the world,” replied Mr. Sanders.  “ You may differ with him in his views ;  you may regard him, if you please, as extreme, as fanatical ;  but no man that knows him ever doubted his heroic honesty.”

“ And you must not forget,” he continued, “that Luckenbach’s testimony is sworn to ;  the letter of Seyd’s relatives is not.  Why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should a wealthy, honorable gentleman, an ex­member of the New York Produce Exchange, not a politician or an office-seeker, go up voluntarily before the clerk of the Supreme Court of Colorado, and make oath to a wholesale lie ?  What interest had he to induce him to take such a step ?  What profit would it be to him ?

ENGLAND'S INTEREST IN MONOMETALISM.

“ But I have shown that the bill could only have passed Congress, in the absence of all public demand, ‘ with the stealthy tread of a cat,’ by the force of corruption ;  and somebody must have furnished the money, and no small sum at that, to ‘ sneak ’ it through both House.  Who did it ?  Who had the interest to do it and the money to do it ?  Who to-day defends the system thus established and stops the European governments from agreeing to remonetize silver by international action ?  England.  And why does England do this ?  Mr. Gladstone, with charming frankness, told the whole story when he said that England would never consent to bi­metalism because she was the great creditor nation of the globe ;  that the whole world was in debt to her, and was obliged to pay her thousands of millions of dollar annually, for interest ;  and, said he, it is England’s purpose that the money in which this interest is paid shall be the scarcest and dearest that can be found ;  because therewith she can buy so much more of the wheat, the cotton, the wool, the corn, the beef, the pork, the tobacco of the nations, at the lowest possible rates.  She can thus supply her own people at half price.  To restore the conditions which existed prior to 1873, would simply be to double England’s grocery and butcher’s bill ;  and what is it to England if the whole world sinks into bottomless ruin if only she can survive ?  The nation that forced opium and missionaries—in the same treaty—upon the Chinese, at the point of the bayonet ;  and whose merchants are now giving away the same deadly drug, by the wholesale, to the Hindoos, in order to cultivate the appetite for the Hell-purveying poison among her own subjects, would shed no tears if the people of these United States, from ocean to ocean, were starving, or were swimming in a sea of fraternal blood.

THE FALL OF PRICES.

“ But,” said the peak-nosed man, “ you people charge that there has been a constant fall of prices since silver was demonetized in 1873, and my daily paper, ‘ The Champion Plutocratic Prevaricator,’ of Chicago, showed last week that wheat was going up and that corn and pork were higher than they had been for years, while there had been no corresponding change in the price of silver.  How do you account for that ? ”

“ Which is the warmer,” asked Mr. Sanders, “Jannuary or July ? ”

“ July, of course,” was the reply.

“ You will swear to that ? ”

“ Certainly.”

“ As long as the observations of civilized man extend, therefore, July has been warmer than January ? ”

“ Certainly.”

“ And you know you can count upon it,” said the farmer, “as a fixed fact in nature, only to be changed by some cosmical catastrophe, that the temperature will increase from late winter to spring and thence to summer ? ”

“ Certainly.”

“ And yet is there not sometimes a colder day in May than in April ? ”

“ Of course.”

“ And frosts in June and hot spells in March ? ”

“ Certainly.”

“ But, nevertheless, the rule, as a rule, prevails, that it grows warmer from February to July.”

“ Of course.”

“ Then why is it that we have the colder days ? ”

“ Well, I suppose continuous winds from the north may cause a cold spell.”

“Exactly,” said the farmer, “or hot winds from the south may make it semi-tropical in January.”

“ Of course.”

“ Let me make another comparison,” said Mr. Sanders.  “ Did you ever stand on the sea-beach and watch the tide rising ? ”

“ Yes .”

“ Did you notice how sometimes the waves seem to retreat, and you begin to think the tide is falling ;  but soon in comes another wave that laves the sand a little higher than any of its predecessors ;  and so—with occasional halts and retrocessions—the great ocean continues to crawl in, until the level is, at last, many feet above low water mark.  Now, what would you think of a newspaper reporter who, observing one of these recessions, should telegraph to his paper :—‘Wonderful phenomenon !  The tide of the Atlantic stops rising before its time, and the water falls.  Has the bottom of the ocean caved in ? ’ ”

“ I should think,” replied the peak-nosed man, “ that he was a fool.”

“ Very right,” said Mr. Sanders.  “Now suppose you found that that reporter had furnished his extraordinary statement because he was paid for it, what then ? ”

“ I should say that he was a scoundrel.”

“ Precisely,” replied the farmer.  “Now here is a table, compiled from official sources, showing how wheat and cotton and forty-five other principal commodities, fell, side by side with silver, during these twenty-one years.  The prices of wheat and cotton are the American market price ;  the other articles are from the tables of the famous European statistician, Mr. Sallerbeck.  Just let me read them to you—they are instructive.

By this table it appears that silver fell from $1.32 an ounce in 1872 to 75 cents an ounce in 1893, a fall equal to 43 per cent.;  that wheat fell from $1.47 a bushel in 1872 to 68 cents in 1892, a drop of 53 per cent.;  and cotton declined from 19.3 cents to 7.2 cents, equal to 60 per cent.

“Observe,” continued Mr. Sanders, “that as the swelling tide of the increased purchasing power of gold rolled in steadily for twenty-one years, there were occasional lapses, recessions ;  but the tide rose, nevertheless.  For instance, the increased price of pork is due to the increased price of corn, caused by the greatest failure of the corn crop last fall, by excessive drought, ever known since this country was settled ;  and this drought forced farmers to sell their cattle ;  and so cattle are scarce and beef rises ;  and the rise in wheat is due to last year’s drought and this year’s chinch-bugs, frost and other adverse influences.

“ What was it,” said Mr. Sanders, turning to the peak-nosed man, “ that you called the reporter who announced [for money] that the tide was falling before it had half risen ? ”

“ A scoundrel,” said peak-nose.

“ Precisely ;  and can you think of any stronger term to apply to the men who try to overthrow the force of a great general truth by the use of petty, temporary subterfuges and tricks ? ”

“ The term is strong enough to cover everything,” said Miss Bowman, laughing.

“ Now, remember,” continued the farmer, “ that these vile falsehoods and sophistries are perpetrated by men who call themselves honest, christian gentlemen, and guides to public opinion in the greatest nation on earth.  They stab their native land and the human family with one hand, while they hold out the other hand behind their back to receive the bribe.”

SLAVERS.

“ But,” said the red-faced man, “ you must admit that the Republican party freed four millions of slaves.”

“ I am not discussing political parties,” replied Mr. Sanders.  “ There are many noble things in the record of both the old parties ;  and the one can point with as much pride to Andrew Jackson as the other can to Abraham Lincoln.  And yet it is to be doubted whether the new industrial slavery is not worse than the old domestic slavery.”

“ I am shocked to hear you utter such a sentiment,” said Mr. Hutchinson.

“ I know you are,” was the reply, “ but,

Stone walls do not a prison make,
No iron bars a cage.’

“ And all of slavery is not the auction block.  There are slaves that wear no gyves ;  and brains that are lacerated instead of backs.  The black man before the war was sold to the highest bidder ;  the white slave since the war is sold to the lowest bidder.  The master took care of the first ;  society takes no care of the latter.  The patriarchal system required the master to nurture the young and helpless slave, and also those who were too old to support themselves.  The industrial system regards human beings as the cheapest commodity in the world, because as soon as one drops off ten stand ready to take his place.  Machinery can not reproduce itself in that fashion ;  and, therefore it must be carefully housed and cared for.  Fecund nature supplies men faster than society can devour them.  They are the trash and refuse of the world.”

“ But white people are not slaves,” said the red-faced man.

“ He is a slave the product of whose toil goes to enrich another, without any just equivalent to himself,” replied Mr. Sanders.  “ No black woman in the South ever worked as hard in the cotton fields or lived as poorly as the ‘sweaters’ in our great cities.  A committee of the New York Legislature was appointed last winter to investigate the ‘sweat shops.’  In one instance, sworn to, and reported in the New York World of May 1st, 1895, it appears that a mother and three children, by working hard, fourteen hours a day, earned thirty cents a day !  Another witness made flannel outing shirts complete for three cents each.  The work in the week of one man amounted to $4.00 ;  and out of this $2.50 went for rent !  Many girls testified they worked for ten cents a day !

“ Compare these poor, cadaverous, over-worked creatures with the glossy, shining, corpulent black bondsmen of the South, with their gardens, their dances, their songs, their corn-huskings, and their possum-feasts.  Why, their lives were a continuous picnic, so far as animal comforts and gratifications were concerned, compared with the inexpressibly wretched creatures in the garrets of New York, working fourteen hours a day for ten cents, and living in clusters like wild beasts ;  and this not for a day, a week or a month, but for a lifetime.  And in the presence of these awful facts religion is silent, while it fingers its salary, and talks about Abraham and Isaac, and ignores the 70,000 prostitutes of New York City alone, whom society condemns to life-long wretchedness here and everlasting tortures elsewhere.

“ But you are crying,” he said suddenly, turning to Miss Bowman.

“ Pardon me,” she said, with handkerchief to eyes, “ but there came up before me a vision of such a life as you have described—its horrors, its unending horrors—it was like looking into a vista of Pluto’s kingdom.”

“ It is Pluto’s kingdom,” replied Mr. Sanders.  “ It is the fruits of Plutocracy ;  and the question now is in all this fair land, ‘Shall Pluto’s kingdom cover the continent and be eternal ?  Or will mankind rise up and drive the demons off the face of the earth ? ’ ”

“ You put it strongly, ” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ but it seems to me you do not approach the real question in all this controversy.”

“ What is that ? ”

FREE SILVER WOULD DRIVE OUT GOLD.

“ You fail to answer the contention of the single-standard advocates, that the remonetization of silver would give us two kinds of currency, a silver currency worth fifty cents on the dollar, and a gold currency worth one hundred cents ;  and that this country would become the dumping ground for all the silver in the world, and the gold would be driven out, because gold and silver cannot co-exist side by side.”

“ Well, well,” said Mr. Sanders, laughing, “ you have given me a blizzard of conundrums.  But I shall try to answer them.

“ First, you say, gold and silver cannot exist together.  The answer is that they did exist together, among the nations of the earth, for 5,000 years.”

“ But,” replied Mr. Hutchinson, “ in our own country gold drove silver out for years prior to the civil war.”

“ Why ? ” said the farmer.  “ For the reason that silver was at 3½ cents premium on the dollar over gold, because our silver coins were heavier than foreign coins of the same grade ;  and foreign brokers bought up our silver coins and shipped them abroad to secure the difference.  The remedy would have been to reduce the amount of silver in the dollar 3½ per cent., and all temptation to export it would have ceased at once.  These are simply small matters, capable of ready adjustment.”

“ But how about the two kinds of currency if you open the mints to silver ? ” asked the peak-nosed man.

“ Now,” said Mr. Sanders, standing up and raising his voice so that every one in the car could hear him, “ I desire to put a fair question and I want an honest answer.

THE ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.

“ If to-day silver bullion is worth fifty cents on the dollar, and to-morrow the mints are thrown open to silver, and any man can take his silver bullion there and exchange it for legal tender silver dollars, worth one hundred cents, is there any person, within the hearing of my voice, who would sell his bullion for fifty cents on the dollar, or for anything less than the hundred cents he could get for it at the mints !  Is there ? ”

There was dead silence.  Mr. Hutchinson was engaged studying the scenery.

“ I repeat the question again,” cried Mr. Sanders, “ is there any person big enough fool to take less for his silver than he could get for it at the mint ? ”

Here a squeaky voice cried out :  “ I would.”

Mr. Sanders started up the aisle to investigate.  He found a sallow-faced young man seated by an elderly lady, who was convulsed with laughter.

“ You would,” said Mr. Sanders, looking at the youth, as if about to argue the question with him.

The elderly lady checked her merriment long enough to say :

“ Excuse me, sir ;  don’t bother with him.  He is my nephew.  He is an idiot.  I am taking him to the imbecile asylum.”

“ Ah,” said Mr. Sanders, “ I thought he was a banker.”

“ Same thing,” said a gruff old fellow, with spectacles, who had listened attentively to the debate ;  and there was a great laugh, in which Mr. Hutchinson joined heartily.

“ Now, gentlemen,” said Mr. Sanders, resuming his seat, “ you can find nobody but an idiot who would sell his silver bullion for less than free-coinage would give him for it at the mint—to wit :  one hundred cents for every 412½ grains of standard silver.

“ Well,” said the peak-nosed man, “what does that prove ? ”

“ Just this,” replied the farmer, “ that whenever 412½ grains of silver are worth one hundred cents it is worth as much as the gold dollar.  It will perform all the functions of the gold dollar ;  it has performed them all along ;  and has been, as a dollar, worth 100 cents, when as bullion it was worth but 50 cents.  But the whole cunning cry of the enemies of mankind has been that silver was worth but 50 cents on the dollar, as bullion, because it was shut out of the mints.  The moment you throw open the mints to silver the bullion value will raise to the coin value, and there is no power on earth that can keep it down.  For no man will sell his bullion at 50 cents when he can coin it and get 100 cents—except our distinguished friend in front, who is on his way to the imbecile asylum.  And the proof that silver bullion would rise at once to the value of the silver coins for which it could be exchanged at the mints, is found in a historical fact.  When Harrison was President the U.S. Senate passed a bill to remonetize silver ;  and it was supposed that the House would also pass it, for there was a large majority in that body in its favor.  Silver bullion was then selling for 94 cents an ounce ;  but inside of ten days it advanced, not in the United States alone, but all over the world, to 117—a gain of 23 cents an ounce.  If the bill had passed the House it would undoubtedly have risen the other 12 cents necessary to bring it to 128—its old ratio with gold.  Silver is depressed in price simply because it is demonetized—the mints are closed against it, there is scarcely any other market for it, except the demand of China, Japan and India.  If that was gone it would not be worth as much as pot-metal.”

“ Why,” said Miss Bowman, “ did the House not pass the bill ? ”

“ But would not gold, as the superior metal, disappear ? ” asked Mr. Hutchinson.

“ Why should it ? ” replied Mr. Sanders, “ silver would be worth 100 cents and gold would be worth 100 cents ;  neither, therefore, would be superior or inferior to the other, and there would be no reason why one should drive the other out.”

“ This is all very well for this country,” said Mr. Hutchinson, “ but how about foreign nations ? ”

“ Exactly,” cried the peak-nosed man, “ the English speculator would buy up English silver bullion at 50 cents on the dollar, and bring it over here and take it to the mint and get 100 cents on the dollar for it, and we would be overwhelmed with a flood of all the silver in the world.”

“ That, I know, is a common argument,” said Mr. Sanders, “ but let us look into it.”

“ We will suppose that you, sir,” he said, turning to the peak-nosed man, “ were in London the day the mints of- this country were thrown open to the free-coinage of silver, and you heard silver had risen, at one bound, to 100 cents on the dollar.  Now you have a few thousand dollars, and you say to yourself, ‘ I will buy silver bullion at 50 cents and take it across the Atlantic and coin it at 100 cents.’  And you sally out to find a banker who has silver bullion for sale ;  and you find him, and a dialogue something like this ensues :

“ ‘ Good morning, sir ;  I understand you have some silver bullion to sell.’

“ ‘ Yes, I have several million pounds worth of it.”

“ ‘ I want to buy $20,000 worth at 50 cents on the dollar.’

“ ‘ Are you a fool, or do you take me for one ?  Don’t you know that there is such a thing as the Atlantic cable—several of them—and don’t you know that the United States have thrown open their mints to the free-coinage of silver, and the holders of the bullion at once put up the price to what they could get for it at the mint ;  and silver bullion is now worth 100 cents on the dollar.”

“ ‘ But that is in the United States.’

“ ‘ You must be the biggest fool in London.  I presume you are an American, belonging to one of the old parties.  Don’t you know that I can ship my silver bullion over there and get legal tender silver dollars, and buy wheat with them or lend them out on mortgages ? ’

“ ‘ Then you will not rush your silver bullion over there at once ? ’

“ ‘ Why should I ?  Suppose it is worth 100 cents on the dollar on the west side of the Atlantic, then it is worth 100 cents on the dollar on this, the east, side of the Atlantic, less the cost of carriage from England to the United States.  Suppose I take a million dollars’ worth of silver bullion at the American price and ship it over there and pay the freight, insurance, etc., say one per cent., and get back my 100 cents and my freight, insurance, etc., what profit have I made by the transaction ?  My million dollars are worth a million dollars without carrying them to the American mints.’

“ ‘ Then there will be no flooding of the United States with European silver ? ’

“ ‘ Not a flood.  That was the kind of stuff we fed the American fools with, but they got sharp enough to see through it.’

“ ‘ Well, won’t European silver be sent over there ? ’

“ ‘ There is no European silver, worth speaking of.  We get our supplies from the United States and Mexico.  The latter country always held her silver at 100 cents on the dollar, and now the United States does the same thing.  We need large amounts of silver annually for subsidiary coin, and the arts, and we must pay the price demanded by those who have it for sale.’

“ ‘ Then the price all over the world will be the same ? ’

“ ‘ Certainly.  Is not the price of wheat, corn, meats, woolens, cotton and everything else the same through all the markets of the globe, allowing for difference in cost of transportation from the place of production ?  Is it possible to conceive of wheat being at the same time, and continuously, worth fifty cents in the United States and a dollar in Liverpool ?  Where would the dealers and speculators be ?  The world to-day is one great shop, knitted together by telegraph wires, and the price at one end of the counter is the same as the price at the other end.  Go home to America, young men, soak your head for a week in fresh milk, don’t look at a daily paper for a year, try to think for yourself, and you may at last rise, by great effort, above the level of sheer idiocy, into which most of your so-called business men seem to have fallen.  Your country has long been a field of plunder for the whole world.  It is fast becoming its laughing stock ;  and your newspapers and your money-lenders are doing it :—the latter rob you and the former humbug you ;—and you stand loyally by the chaps who despoil you, and believe enthusiastically in the fellows who fool you.  You are a lovely set of daisies to run a great nation.  You are the twentieth trituration of banks, bondholders, foreign capitalists, base-ball games, corrupt newspapers, rotten legislatures, pugilism, corporation judges and bribed jurymen.  Ye are weighed in the balance and found wanting.  Your upper classes despise liberty and the lower classes are permeated with discontent, and regard the government as a sort of slave-driver’s whip to make them work without pay.  The great republic is doomed, if there is not salt enough of virtue among its own people to save it.”

Just at this point the cars stopped at a station and a telegram was handed one of the passengers.  He read it and sprang to his feet, and waved it in the air, and shouted :  “ Hurrah !  The Supreme Court has declared the income tax unconstitutional.”

Every man in the car, except Mr. Sanders and the gruff gentleman, rose up and cheered, and great excitement prevailed.  Mr. Sanders sat in his seat, looking very much distressed.  At last Mr. Hutchinson, whose face was wreathed in smiles, said to him :

“ You don’t seem to like it.”

“ No,” replied the farmer, “ I do not.  It will save me a little money, but I do not rejoice over that.  I am willing to pay my share of all just taxes, as every honest man should be.  I regret that decision very much.”

“ Why ? ” cried the peak nosed man, who was in a high state of delight.

“ Because,” said Mr. Sanders, “of its effect upon the country.  It will tend still farther to divide the people into classes, and to intensify the discontent of the poorer part of the population, and that way lies death and hell.”

“ Nonsense,” said Mr. Hutchinson.

“ I am sorry,” said the farmer, “ to see in the action of this accidental gathering an evidence of the class feeling already existing, and a proof of the short-sightedness of that class.”

“ What do you mean by that ? ” asked the red-faced man.

“ You represent the wealthier part of the population,” said the farmer, “ and you rejoice that you have escaped your share of taxation and thereby increased the burden of those less able to pay than you are.”

THE INCOME TAX.

“ Well,” said Mr. Hutchinson, “we simply utter a natural protest against an unjust system of taxation.”

“ The income tax,” said the farmer, “is the justest mode of taxation known in the world.  We already have it in some of the States.”

“ How so ? ” asked the banker.

“ In those instances where the State takes a percentage of the gross or net earnings of railroad companies and similar corporations.  This is really a tax on their incomes ;  it is an income tax, and we know of no complaint against it.  If you tax personal property it eludes you ;  it scatters like rats and hides itself.  Then you throw the tax upon land, and you thereby punish the farmer for raising food for the world.

“ What a man owns is no criterion of what he is worth—it may be covered with mortgages and eaten up with taxes ;  or it may be for a year, or a term of years, unproductive.  The farmer’s crops may be all swept away by insects, or flattened into the earth by hail, or burned up by drought ;  and he may have to borrow money to live ;  still the tax goes on.  Society adds to the cruelty of nature, and from the impoverished producer takes his last dollar.  More than that, to collect the tax on land you have to build up a most expensive, complicated machinery ;  you employ an officer in each county to make a list of all the lands in the county, and another set of officers in each township to assess them, and say what each piece is worth ;  then you have to have a county auditor and a lot of clerks to divide up the tax and charge against each piece its share ;  then you have to have a county treasurer, with another lot of clerks, to receive the people’s taxes ;  and then you have to advertise the delinquents so many times in a newspaper, and hold an auction and sell the property.  And in many instances the whole tax is paid out for assessing and collecting it, and the taxpayers receive little or nothing for the millions they disburse.  And society in each county is divided into two classes—a tax-paying class and a tax—eating class.  The ‘tax-eaters’ are few in number, but sharp and shrewd ;  and as the offices they hold yield many times more than they could earn in private life, they are ready to expend a large part of their salaries to retain them ;  and thus the voters are corrupted and the whole community made rotten and dishonest, to the imminent peril of free institutions and the disgrace of the good name of our country.  But, if there was an income tax levied, we will say, by the state, and divided among the counties, one set of officers could attend to the whole business ;  a whole army of ‘taxeaters’ would be discharged ;  and the public would be purified by the closing up of a thousand fountains of corruption in each state.  Then each citizen would pay in proportion to what he receives, not in proportion to what he attempts or hopes to receive.  The producers, the energetic men who create wealth, would be relieved of their burdens and encouraged ;  while the idle capitalists, who make hundreds of others work for them, but do not work themselves, would have to foot the bills.  Taxes are contributions by the people to preserve order and protect life and property.  The poor man does not need such defence to any great extent.  He has nothing for any one to steal.  It would profit no man to assail him.  But if you refuse to employ policemen and troops in the great cities, or repeal the laws against robbery and murder, a rush of the criminal class would at once be made on the houses of the wealthy, and the lives and fortunes of the Goulds, the Astors, the Vanderbilts and others like them, would disappear in scenes of shocking brutality and carnage.  As it is now the few cunning adventurers obtain some advantage, inside or outside the law, and despoil millions to enrich themselves, and then turn around and demand that those they have plundered shall defend them from rapine and outrage, and that they themselves must not be called upon to pay one penny for their body guard.  And the Supreme Court of the United States has, by the decision you have been cheering, taken from Congress the power to make them pay anything, and says they shall go Scot-free as long as the nation endures.”

“ But cannot they be reached by direct taxation ?” asked Miss Bowman.

“ No ;  because the constitution says that direct taxes and representation shall both be upon the basis of population ;  and therefore the poverty-stricken, heavily mortgaged people of the West and South would have to pay as much direct tax as the same number of wealthy people in New England or New York, who own the mortgages ;  and that would be so shockingly unjust that no one has yet had the effrontery to propose it.  This decision you are applauding therefore declares that the great fortunes in this country shall never pay a cent for the support of the government.”

“ How about the tariff ? ” asked the red-faced man.

“ The very wealthy need pay little or nothing under the tariff.  They spend a great part of their time abroad ;  they are the best customers of English and French tailors and milliners ;  when they return to the United States they usually come equipped with full supplies of costly clothing that pay no tariff.”

“ But, can they not be reached by local—state—taxation ? ” asked Mr. Hutchinson.

“ They could be if our legislatures were honest,” replied Mr. Sanders ;  “but you know, as well as I, the character of the average American legislator.  He spends large sums to be elected, expecting to recoup himself out of the opportunities of his office.  He comes prepared to be bribed, and he is not often disappointed.”

“ You draw a very gloomy picture, sir, of our condition,” said Miss Bowman.

“ It is gloomy,” replied the farmer ; “ it was not so gloomy the week before the battle of Gettysburg.  We were not in so much deadly danger then as now.  Then both sections were instinct with manhood and heroism ;  they were volunteers—fighting for principles which they believed to be right ;  now we have, as a rule, a lot of hireling soldiers ready to shoot down their unarmed fellow citizens, driven by wretchedness to violence and stone­throwing in the larger towns.  Then it was an age of splendid heroes ;  now the community has become so rotten, with universal corruption, that there is scarce coherence enough to hold society together.  Instead of heroes we have a lot of emasculated, feminine-like tricksters and usurers.  In the last hundred years the resources of this land have been turned into colossal fortunes, which have concentrated in the hands of those who did not produce them ;  and they are laboring with demoniacal industry and ingenuity to destroy our magnificent free institutions and reduce the common people to European conditions.  They do not understand that the American citizen is the old world peasant plus generations of training in liberty—he is a new product ;  nothing just like him has ever been seen before on the face of the earth.  He is slow to comprehend the trend of affairs ;  he can be cajoled through his prejudices and party fanaticism, but when at last it becomes plain, even to his unsuspicious mind, that he is being enslaved, and that his children are to be held in bondage forever, there will come an outburst like the breaking forth of wild beasts.  And the longer he is deceived and deluded the more terrible will be the catastrophe when it does come.  You men are simply piling up wrath against the day of wrath.  And history will record that this decision of the Supreme Court, over which you have been hurrahing, was a most potent factor in making plain to all men that the liberties of the country are already destroyed.  Think as you please, write as you please, resolve as you please, vote as you please, formulate your party platforms as you please, fill Congress with your representatives, yet there, high above all the machinery of government, high above your own heads, high above the nation, sit your nine gowned masters, and behind them, shrouded in blood and clouds, is the demoniac spectre of unreasoning human greed—Plutocracy !

“ Our fathers dreamed that they could establish on this western continent a nation dedicated to equality, liberty and human happiness.  It was for this they labored ;  it was for this they fought ;  it was for this they endured untold sufferings.  They saw, as in a vision, a mighty brotherhood—none poor, none greatly rich—and over it they lifted up a flag made of stars and lines of light—light for the wretched and unhappy ;  stars of hope for the downtrodden and the oppressed of all the world.  A little more than one hundred years have passed away, and this is now a land of princes and paupers, of palaces and hovels, of soldiers and tramps, of great wealth and great misery.  All the worst features of European—almost of Asiatic—degeneracy have already appeared among us.  The clamor is already heard for a ‘ stronger government ’ and a larger army ;  huge fortifications, called armories, have sprung up in all our great cities ;  and the very children in our schools are being trained, in their callow youth, in the arts and instincts of murder.  While the constitution of the United States declares that no state shall maintain a standing army, large bodies of troops are being organized, uniformed and paid by the several states.  Our legislatures are butcher’s shambles, where each piece of meat is hung up and ticketed with its price.  Our politicians clearly understand that subserviency to the power of corruption is the one pathway to wealth and honor ;  and that he who defends the people must accept poverty and obscurity for his portion ;  our newspapers, instead of standing on the watchtowers and sending forth ringing bugle blasts to wake and warn the sleeping multitude, are at work, in darkness and night, digging out the foundation walls of civilization, so that the whole grand structure may crumble into ruin at the first shot from the cannon of the enemy.

“ On every hand you hear doubts expressed as to the possibility of maintaining republican institutions ;  with fears of the common people—the same common people who formed the nation, and who have defended its life through all the mighty struggles of the past.  A Napoleonic furore has even been surprisingly inaugurated, to dazzle the imaginations of a susceptible race with the tinsel glare of imperial splendors.  The old Tory element which was expatriated to Nova Scotia as traitors, not fit to dwell in a land of freedom, has returned among us and is ruling the country.  The Hamiltonian school of politics, with its aristocratic leanings, its distrust of the people, and its legalized separate costumes for the classes, has taken shelter in the national banks.  The old she-wolf—Nicholas Biddle’s bank—which Andrew Jackson wounded, has crawled out of the bushes, followed by all her whelps, and is ravaging the land.

“ Oh, my friends, it is useless to argue longer about petty details, as to ‘units’ or statutes, or dates, or figures.  Clearer than the difference between blackest night and brightest day is the difference between the two policies now presented to the American people.  The one leads us back into the horrors of the past—irresponsible masters—kingship—the rulers brutes—the people serfs—the bayonet of greed at the throat of the thinker—humanity prostrate, degraded, helpless.  The other policy points forward toward the dawn of the world’s perfect morning—universal prosperity ;  universal happiness ;  no violence ;  no proscription ;  no intolerance ;  no darkened minds ;  no broken hearts ;  labor no longer starving, and idleness gorging ;  but peace, plenty, equal opportunity and fair play over all the earth.

“ That is night and its horrors.  This is day and its glories.

“ Choose ye between them.

“ The bell tolls the hour of destiny and doom.”